Part of being a good parent is making sure you put your offspring before your selfish desires. The first and easiest step in that process is to stop getting high, because if you don’t your child will suffer. In some cases the child’s suffering will be horrendous and unfortunately fatal:
INDIANA, Pa. — State police said a western Pennsylvania woman was high on marijuana when she rolled onto her infant son while sleeping, killing him.
Jessica Wojno, 24, of Indiana, remains in the Indiana County Jail on involuntary manslaughter and marijuana possession charges.
Police said she found her baby, 4-month-old Joseph Wojno, dead beneath her when she woke up July 11. Authorities said her estranged husband came to the house that morning and she told him the baby was sleeping, even though she knew he was dead.
The boy was taken to the emergency room of the Indiana Regional Medical Center and was pronounced dead a short time later.
So tell me again how legalizing pot would have prevented this tragedy?
This woman’s selfishness and irresponsibility killed her baby. She had a choice to make between being a good mother or dwelling in her immaturity, and her choice was to pretend she was still a child herself with no responsibilities and no tiny life depending on her for safety and security.
h/t Bad Breeders
And who are you directing that rhetorical question at, Rob? I don’t know of anyone who would say that changes in the current marijuana laws would have prevented this senseless tragedy. It is a silly straw man argument you have constructed for an easy perceived win when you knock it down.
As I have explained numerous times, the decrease in crime related to the decriminalization of adult marijuana possession comes from the financial incentive that people who sell marijuana would have to settle their differences with their own competition in a lawful way,I’m sure I don’t need to go through the whole historical lesson again for you. You do remember it, Right? The liquor store owners don’t shoot each other today like they did during the time of US alcohol prohibition. And the marijuana sellers in Amsterdam compete with better marketing today, instead of shooting each other in the streets like pushers in our inner cities do every day. Remember all this?
Neglecting and endangering your children through any type of substance abuse is heinous, whether the substance you are abusing is alcohol, pot, prescription medications, or anything else. Would this incident have been any less tragic if she’d just been drunk on Jim Beam? Of course not.
And if this tragedy had happened because she had been drinking too much alcohol, instead of getting high, would you then advocate that alcohol should be illegal as well? I don’t think you would.
So let’s stop pretending that people who advocate a change in our nation’s marijuana laws do so because we think legalization would have stopped a tragedy such as this one. It is just silly and distracts from your valid advocacy of personal responsibility and good child rearing.
Del are you really saying there’s no liquor related violence? That the mafia doesn’t control liquor distribution? That gangs like the Pagans don’t shake down strip clubs etc,? If you were listened to sell pot do you really think MS-13 would compete with you in lawful ways, rather than “taxing” you and killing you if you don’t pay?
Do you really think gang violence is caused by drugs being illegal? Then can you explain the massive weeks long riots between gangs in 19th century New York? Or the “ethnic cleansing” of Black areas in LA by Latino gangs who are targeting non-gang affiliated Blacks?
Smoking pot (and getting drunk on whiskey frankly) is immature. Pot is more immature because it’s illegal and no matter what your thoughts on that are you must admit that this is bad parenting.
Many legalization advocates think crime will “go down” if pot was legalized bu this isn’t the case. Some crimes will disappear. Gang violence will not, just as history proves the Mafia remained as violent as it has always been. Gangs will not become less violent because the gang culture doesn’t allow pacifism.
If we legalize pot we still need to be able take potheads kids away from them, we still need to combat gangs who make money off pot (just as we fought the Mafia well into the 1990s) and we can’t romanticize legal drug use.
This is not uncommon. People who choose to sleep with their babies like they are teddy bears quite frequently roll over on them and smother them – with or without marijuana. This is why doctors and nurses tell people to keep the baby in the crib and to never sleep with it. This woman would still be a moron whether she was high on pot, or drunk on alcohol, or deep in a Lunesta-induced slumber, or on no drugs whatsoever.
Perhaps, but the fact that she was getting high right before she went to bed with her baby, that she couldn’t limit her pot smoking to when she has a sitter or when the child was old enough to be out the house, proves that she was selfish woman who refused to put childish things behind her.
And while I agree with you about this being possible with any drug, the fact is if she were sober it might not of happened at all. I’m a heavy sleeper (and a snorer my wife tells me) and we have a little dog who wakes me to take her for a walk by quietly smacking her lips. I also wake up if I hear arguing in the street, hard breaking from a car etc.
When I was a drinker I could sleep through those things. Now that I don’t drink I cannot. I put forward that people who are sober would likely wake up if they rolled onto a child unless they had some other condition.
Del are you really saying there’s no liquor related violence?
Uhm, no, Rob… I didn’t say that..
I said that when legalization proponents discuss reductions of crime through legalization, they are referring to the types of crime I outlined above, and not other types of crime, like this sad case.
Please stop with all of these silly straw men and trying to put words in my mouth.. If you want to criticize something I said, please quote what I said when you criticize it, like I do for you.
That the mafia doesn’t control liquor distribution? That gangs like the Pagans don’t shake down strip clubs etc,? If you were listened to sell pot do you really think MS-13 would compete with you in lawful ways, rather than “taxing†you and killing you if you don’t pay?
I never said violence related to the market for alcohol was eliminated by alcohol being legalized. I simply said that the overall levels of this type of violence has been reduced. That is a fact! Surely you can admit that much. Gang violence related to the distribution of alcohol in illegal venues was much higher during the years of prohibition.
Perhaps, but the fact that she was getting high right before she went to bed with her baby, that she couldn’t limit her pot smoking to when she has a sitter or when the child was old enough to be out the house, proves that she was selfish woman who refused to put childish things behind her.
I agree what you say about her level of irresponsibility, but let’s not make excuses for the woman! You say that “she couldn’t limit her pot smoking to when she has a sitter or when the child was old enough to be out the house”. I disagree completely! She COULD HAVE limited it but she CHOSE NOT TO! She made a personal choice that was a bad one and her poor innocent child has suffered the ultimate consequence for her poor parenting and decision making. It is HER responsibility to be a good parent.
the same thing coold have happened if she CHOSE to take a legal sedative to help her sleep. Does that mean that all legal sedatives should now be made illegal as well? Of course not!
Hold her responsible for her own choices and actions, Rob, not the pot she smoked. Don’t make excuses for her like this.
It’s just like guns.. When people make poor choices with guns, and don’t follow the basic rules of safety, people can be hurt or killed. But that is not the fault of the gun and it doesn’t mean that the gun should be made illegal. And when an accident happens because a gun owner makes a poor choice, that shouldn’t mean that all people should be banned from owning guns. This is the same principle to me. Just because this person made a poor choice that involved her use of marijuana and killed her child doesn’t justify your position that pot should be illegal for all people.
When I was a drinker I could sleep through those things. Now that I don’t drink I cannot.
this is a very enlightening statement from you, Rob. I didn’t realize you used to drink but do not do so anymore. Can you expand on that a bit? What made you decide it was time to stop?
I don’t drink because I realized i was too old to hang around bars with people I wouldn’t trust with my wallet. Look, people get high or drunk because they’re avoiding reality, maybe they’re depressed, maybe they’re insecure, whatever. But the point of life is to live life, not avoid it.
Most people are unwilling to stop being involved with the immature drug or drinking culture because they ultimately have nothing else going on. Once you stop drinking you’re not going to meet new people every day, etc. You’re not going to “score” with some one who doesn’t know you, you’re not going to live a fantasy life. In that sense bars are kind of continuations of high school/college where people dwell in a fantasy of consequencless actions.
Once you admit that as an adult you have better options than pissing away your time in a bar (literally), you also realize that drinking in general is a waste of time. Beer doesn’t taste good, it tastes like piss, but you drink it to get buzzed. Wine’s little better. Your life is more than numbing yourself and trying to get laid, forget things.
At 37 I don’t want my last day, if I should die suddenly, to be spent sitting around with people this close to vomiting, I don’t want die in a bar fight, I don’t want my last moment with my wife to be her holding my hair back and I certainly don’t want my wife to remember me drunk and stupid.
I want to experience life as it is, explore the numinous clear headed and try to leave life wiser than when I came in. The crutch of drinking or drug use is an infantlizing habit that separates you from Truth. That’s a bit heady I know but that’s why I don’t drink.
By the way I don’t think pot should or shouldn’t be illegal, but I reserve the right of society to judge pot smokers for their inability to let go of something they did when they were 13. Drug use is bad for you, not just physiologically buy mentally and spiritually.
This isn’t the case of “who’s a bad parent cause they are stoned”, it’s a case of “who’s a bad parent because they chose to NOT listen to a valid advice of NOT sleeping with an infant in your bed”…
Just because she’s stoned or not, doesn’t mean that the pot was what caused her to roll over and suffocate her child…I’m sure she’s co-slept with that child on more than one occasion sober, or even stoned, and felt that nothing could happen…but this one time it did…
It’s people like you who just irritate me, going around, spouting that pot is the root of all evil and we should all just eliminate it…
Oh, and for all the stoners that you feel that they can’t let go of stuff that they did in the past, well, buddy, have I got news for you…there are PLENTY of non-stoners out there who live in the past as well…
All right, I’m going to stop reading the Victimless crime ones, since all they do is bash pot smoking in general, not the specific person who chose to do wrong…
Hello,
Not that I am down on judgment because I do enjoy partaking in the activity most of the time but in this instance, I must say you are without the knowledge required to condemn this woman.
I am related (sort of) to Jessie and although I am aware that implies bias on my part, I am still inclined to defend her for certain reasons.
Jessie is not stupid, nor is she irresponsible. What she is, is a kid who had an INCREDIBLY difficult life. She grew up without parents, without access to education and without money. Despite those and other horrible events in her life, she managed to keep it together, finish high school and join the military, which was a hell of a lot more than anyone had any right to expect from a kid in such poor circumstances.
I can say that there would never have been a moment in Jessie’s life where she was in a place to gain a lot of knowledge about how to raise children.
Many people, church going, sober and otherwise often nap with their child in the bed. I do not currently have children, but I am sure this is something I would probably do from time to time as well. It was a mistake that resulted in a fatal accident for which she will never forgive herself. Jessie was by no means a drug addict nor did have any sort of substance abuse problem. And she was NEVER selfish. In fact, she had every right to be a lot more selfish than she ever was. The kid literally had NOTHING growing up.
Jess will have to live with this for the rest of her life. She was not stupid. She was not irresponsible. She operated the best she could with what she had. The only thing I feel is sad for her, not one bit of blame.
That’s pretty much it.
Ok, think about this: The only reason cannabis makes you sleepy is because it raises your melatonin levels quite a bit. Otherwise, it’s a stimulant, and she should have been less likely to fall asleep. Melatonin is a natural sleep hormone that can be bought over-the-counter anywhere. Should that be illegal? Of course it shouldn’t and neither should weed. Weed played a part in a terrible accident, that is all. Your opinionated defiance of logic is startling.
So you’re saying stoners should be allowed to keep their children, deaths be damned? The good thing about keeping pot illegal is it can be used to take children from irresponsible parents, period.
But do show me some stories of children dying when people took over the counter sleep aids. And when you do find them tell me why it should be legal?
I don’t promote or reject prohibition, as I’ve said hundreds of times. I promote honesty in the drug debate. Smoking pot is not like taking over the counter sleep aids, pot smokers are horrible parents. These are simply things that are true. You’re arguing a strawman to avoid reality, ironically the same reason you smoke pot.
The only thing I’m promoting is people growing up and stopping getting high when they have children. Only a degenerate could argue against that.